


So Long. We Wish You Well.

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Series: Mummy Wanted a Girl [3]
Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Martin is a Holmes, Q is a Holmes, i think i went a bit crazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2494199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An MI6 agent says goodbye in the same way someone else would say ‘you will never know how grateful I am to have known you’. Goodbye means ‘I’ll probably never see you again’ like retired means ‘dead’ and compromised means ‘missing, presumed dead’ and promoted means ‘your mentor is dead, your country needs you’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Long. We Wish You Well.

**Author's Note:**

> I went crazy with song lyrics. I apologize. Song title is from Eulogy by Tool. The other songs, in order of appearance are: Flesh and blood by We Rise the Tides. Ghost of You by My Chemical Romance. Ballad of Serenity by Sonny Rhodes. No Quarter by Tool. Pompeii by Bastille. Champagne's for Celebrating, I'll Have a Martini by Mayday Parade. Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums by A Perfect Circle. Vicarious by Tool. Rainmaker by Emmelie DeForest. Again by My Darkest Days. 
> 
> Links with 'Hello, Death, My Old Friend'

**_You are my flesh_ **  
**_You are my blood_ **  
**_And let these be the_ **  
**_last words I say to you._ **  
_\--_  
 **_2012, August._ **

Q has seen and heard a lot of goodbyes in his time. Some of them seemed innocent enough, but Q always knows better. Goodbye is one of those words that carries a double meaning at MI6. An MI6 agent says goodbye in the same way someone else would say ‘you will never know how grateful I am to have known you’. Goodbye means ‘I’ll probably never see you again’ like retired means ‘dead’ and compromised means ‘missing, presumed dead’ and promoted means ‘your mentor is dead, your country needs you’. Q has been in the ear of many an agent who has said their goodbyes. Q has been in the ear of many an agent who never got the chance. Q doesn’t know which is worse. Q has had the misfortune of listening to his siblings and closest friends tell him goodbye. When he dreams, it is never his death that pulls him from his sleep.  
\--  
 **** _You are never coming home.  
Never coming home._  
 **\--**  
 **** _1995_

Q, then known as Lysander, is eleven years old and he’s rifling through his mother’s study for a pair of AA batteries. An envelope falls out of his mother’s desk drawer and Lysander pauses to look at it, recognizing the sloping handwriting that says ‘Goodbye’. His hands shake as he picks up the envelope and traces his fingers over the letters.

“Mycroft?” he whispers, his heart hammering in his chest. His trembling fingers manage to extract the letter from inside the envelope and he sinks to the floor before opening the letter.  
\---  
 _ **Take me out to the black**_  
 _ **Tell ‘em I ain’t coming back.**_  
\--  
 ** _1998_**

_Lysander,_

_I guess this means I’ll never get to call you Q. The only one I can blame for that is myself. I’m sorry. Take care of Mummy, and Mycroft, and Sherrinford, and well, take care of Daddy as well, I guess. You’ll be fine. You’re strong. You’ll get through this. I_ promise.

 _Forever your brother,_  
 _Sherlock Holmes._  
\--  
 __ **Lock all the doors, kill the lights.  
No-one’s coming home tonight.**  
\--  
 ** _2004_**

The image flickers, Lysander feels like laughing, like breaking, as his heart aches in his chest.

_“I can say anything?” Sherrinford asks, looking at whoever is behind the camera._

_“Anything you want.” The cameraman says, Sherrinford nods and lowers his eyes back to the camera._

_“So, I guess if you’re watching this I’m… dead. Great. This is awkward.” Sherrinford laughs awkwardly and shakes his head. “I’m happy to talk to someone in my ear and look like a mad man but talking to a camera is where I draw the line? Really? Frustratingly idiotic!”_

_“If it makes it easier, I can ask you questions?” the cameraman says, Sherrinford’s eyes automatically returning to the man._

_“Questions?” Sherrinford asks, confused._

_“Yeah, there’s a few routine questions we ask when employees can’t… think of what to say or feel uncomfortable talking to the camera.”_

_“Oh. Okay. That works. Sure.” Sherrinford says, relaxing. “I can do questions.” He grins. The cameraman clears his throat._

_“What is your name?” the cameraman asks, Sherrinford laughs._

_“You know, I once got tortured in Egypt for eight hours and all the man wanted to know was my name. He never got it.” Sherrinford answers, his voice humorous even though he’s not lying._

_“The difference between that man and me, is that I already know your name, and I’m not planning to use any of this against Britain.” the cameraman replies, amused. Sherrinford nods his head, conceding the point._

_“Very well. Sherrinford Holmes.” He says, grinning._

_“And what do you do, Sherrinford?” the cameraman asks, Sherrinford rolls his eyes._

_“I’m a Double-Oh agent for MI6… unless I’m not allowed to say that?” He says, frowning. The cameraman laughs._

_“Usually you wouldn’t be allowed, but your family has clearance even above M so go for gold.”_

_“Right.” Sherrinford replies, shifting a little awkwardly in his chair. “Next question.”_

_“If you were going to die, who is the person you’d want to see most before you did?” Sherrinford frowns thoughtfully at that._

_“Just… one person or can it be a group?” he asks, eventually._

_“It can be a group.”_

_“My brothers.” Sherrinford says automatically._

_“Your brothers? And what would you say to them?” Sherrinford laughs and shakes his head._

_“I’d… tell Sherlock to tone things down. And… to not go flying off the rails when I was gone. Because, well, just because he’s my twin, and I know it would be hard for him to live without me, but he’s already the most self-destructive person I’ve ever met, and that says a lot. I’d tell Mycroft to stop being hard on himself, that it wasn’t his fault, that there was nothing he could do. And, I’d tell Lysander to follow his dream. I’d tell them I’d miss them and that they need to look after our parents. I’d… I’d just tell them goodbye.” Sherrinford’s voice cracks and he clears his throat, blinking away the tears in his eyes._

_“Do you love your job?” the cameraman asks after allowing Sherrinford a moment to compose himself._

_“Yes. I love it.”_

_“Do you accept that your job is dangerous?”_

_“Of course. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” Sherrinford answers without hesitation._

_“If you went on a mission and you never came home, would you have regrets?” Sherrinford frowns before shaking his head._

_“I’d… well I wouldn’t have time to have them, would I? I’d be dead.” He says after a while, laughing, it’s not a humorous laugh._

_“Are you afraid of dying?”_

_“No. Everyone dies. I mean, I’m not going to go out and actively seek death, but I’m not going to… I’m not going to beg for my life.” He shrugs._

_“Do you have anything else you want to say?”_

_“No. I think… I think that’s it.”_

_“Then, you can say goodbye now.” Sherrinford nods at the cameraman and sets his eyes back on the camera._

_“If you’re watching this. I’m dead. I hope I went out doing something spectacular. I’m not sorry. I love you. Goodbye.” Sherrinford smiles at the camera._

The image pauses, and Lysander chokes back on a sob as he stares at that frozen image of Sherrinford smiling at the camera.

“Goodbye.” Lysander whispers, his voice breaking. “Goodbye.”  
\--  
 ** _How am I meant to be an optimist about this?_**  
\--  
 ** _1995_**

_My Family,_

_If you’re reading this, then it has become clear to MI6 that I am not coming home. I’m sorry. I don’t really know what to say. Mummy, I love you, you were the best mother anyone could ask for. Daddy, I know you often wondered if it frustrated us that you weren’t as ‘special’ as we were, it didn’t. We love you, you’re our father. If you were truly as ordinary as you think you are, we wouldn’t have been created. Remember that when Sherlock burns down the kitchen again. Sherlock, please try and refrain from burning down the kitchen. Sherrinford, I’m sorry for lumping you with the hardest task, but you admitted it yourself, you are Sherlock’s keeper, try to keep him from destroying everything. Lysander, you’re going to be great at whatever it is you decide to do with your life. I know it. I’m sorry I won’t be there to see you grow up. That’s my biggest regret._

_I love you all._

_I’m sorry._

_Goodbye._

_Forever yours,_  
 _Mycroft._  
 **\--**  
 ** _It’s nights like these_**  
 ** _I wish I’d said don’t go._**  
\--  
 _ **1998**_

His mother is crying again. Lysander frowns. The last time Mummy cried was when Mycroft had come home from America and apologized for being ‘dead’ for three years. Lysander doesn’t think he can handle it if Mycroft is dead again.

“Lysander.” His mother calls for him, and he goes.

“Mummy?” he asks, hesitant. She smiles a sad smile at him and hands him an envelope. His fingers tremble, remembering Mycroft’s letter in the study. The letter he watched Mummy burn the day Mycroft came home. He looks at the writing on the envelope and he can almost hear his heart beating in his chest at the familiar writing.

It’s not Mycroft’s.

It’s Sherlock’s. And all it says is ‘Lysander’ in his brother’s swirling lettering.

His hands shake so much he drops the envelope at least four times before he finally manages to open it.  
\--  
 __ **Counting bodies like sheep**  
 **to the rhythm of the war drums**.  
\--  
 ** _2004_**

Mummy is crying again. Lysander’s chest feels tight.

“I’m sorry, Lysander, I know you’re studying. But you need to come home.” Mummy says, voice breaking.

“Mummy? What’s happened?” Lysander asks, his heart hammering away in his chest.

“It’s… there’s been… you need to come home.” He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.

“I’m coming.” Lysander hangs up, he takes a few moments to compose himself, struggling to pull in painful breath after painful breath. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle it if Sherlock or Mycroft are dead again.

He knows the moment he steps through the door into his family home that it isn’t Sherlock or Mycroft this time. He knows from the way Sherlock has curled himself against Mycroft on the couch and is refusing to let go. Knows by the way Mummy is trying to bury herself in Daddy and cease existing. He knows by the papers on the table, and the VCR case with the letters ‘Sherrinford’ scrawled across them in Sherrinford’s rushed writing.

Lysander is the one who finally pushes play.  
 ** _\--_**  
 ** _Watches him die_**  
 ** _Hands to the sky_**  
 ** _Crying ‘why, oh why?’_**  
 **\--**  
 ** _2012, January._**

Lysander’s heart aches in his chest as he watches the footage. His brother stands on the edge of the roof. And Lysander feels like he’s going to be sick.

“No, stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.” Lysander doesn’t think he even can. His whole body is frozen.

“Alright.” _Please, John, please save him._ Lysander begs in his head.

“Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?” _You bastard. You bastard. How can I look away?_ Lysander wants to scream but he doesn’t have the voice for it.

“Do what?” _Save him, please._

“This phone call, it’s… it’s my note. That’s what people do, isn’t it? Leave a note.” _No, no, no, I’ve already read your note. Never again. Never. Never. Never_.

“Leave a note when?” _Save him!_ Lysander can already hear Mummy crying.

“Goodbye, John.” _I hate you, Sherlock, I hate you!_ Lysander makes a horrible sound in the back of his throat, it sounds like a dying animal. One of his fellow minions finally notices his distress and approaches. Lysander tries to wave them away.

“No. Don’t…” Sherlock is falling. Falling. Falling. Like a dam bursting, Lysander breaks the moment Sherlock’s body hits the ground. He screams and falls to his knees, breaths coming in gasps as he sobs and claws at his chest. His heart _hurts,_ feels like it is tearing itself apart.

“I hate you, Sherlock. I hate you!” he cries as the medics sedate him.  
\--  
 ** _This land, abandoned and dried out._**  
 ** _Listen, no-one hears you shout._**  
 ** _In my hand, the seed of love and life_**  
 ** _but in this land, it withers and it dies._**  
 **\--**  
 ** _2012, August._**

He sends his R to deliver his farewell missive in person. Lysander Holmes died in the bombing of Vauxhall Cross. It is as true as it needs to be. Q will never see his family again. MI6, he has realized, is a plague. It snatches up those with so much potential and holds them so tightly in its grasp until all they are good for is killing. He doesn’t mind. He signed his life away when he was eleven and he found a letter addressed ‘goodbye’ in his brother’s sloping script. He always knew that someday he’d be the one saying goodbye.  
\--  
 ** _Hearts will always break._**  
 ** _They’re fragile in design._**


End file.
